Starting with the Sergeant at Arms (SAA), Audrey Lim, the meeting started with a simple question. It was,” Have you been vaccinated?” This was a simple question, and everyone began sharing about themselves and whether they have been vaccinated, if not why they would or would not prefer putting the vaccine. Some even shared that they stepped up to put the vaccine because most of their friends had already got a jab. And most of them said that the second jab was quite uncomfortable and hurt for a few days. But I think the thought in everyone’s mind was to protect themselves and others around them. One of the members also shared that we should be lucky to live in a country like Singapore because it only took a good fifteen minutes to get a COVID-19 jab in the community club! I also suggest that we should not be complacent and keep ourselves at home and that all of us should go get our jabs once the vaccines for our respective age group have been released.
The next segment was the introduction by the Toastmaster of the Day (TMD), Zhou Siying, who used beautiful vocabulary to engage the members in her introduction about the speakers. She also advised us to use good vocabulary because the there would be Language Evaluation and the Ah Counter’s report. Hehe. Think of that! Then Club President, Rusman Hadijanto, shared his speech with us, saying that networking was very important because the relationship in the community was also very important. He got inspired by inspirational books, movies and also some videos. He shared that we should always look at the bright side for a solution when we have problems, and we should forgive ourselves. His speech was very interesting sharing about himself and what he thinks about inspirational things. He also reminded us to be motivated at all times.
So, icebreaker done, President’s speech done, what next? The Word of the Day! Language Evaluator, Thomas Chen, shared ‘Elucidate’ which means to make clear or explain something. Next, the prepared speech segment started of with Toastmaster Chiam Young, share about making changes to ourselves to the environment. He said that the future is determined by the present which is definitely true. His speech was mainly about change. The next speaker was Rusman Hadijanto, his speech which was about understanding his leadership style. He grew up back in Indonesia where he was taught that leaders were people with money and ordered people around, but he soon found out that money did not solve problems and he understood that leaders do not need to be wealthy to be leaders. So, he continued about his leadership style and leaders around the world like Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and a few more.
Next, we went to speaker Marc Wong, where he shared about making money in the ancient world and the modern world. He said he saw American YouTuber Ryan who was a 9-year-old boy who was earning $26,000,000. He said that he felt like a soldier with a sword and shield. He wanted to work on improvement on your brand. He said that if there is something a kid can do, why can’t I? Next speaker, Valliappan Selvamani, shared about his communication style. He mentioned four different communication styles. Direct, Initiative, Supportive and Analytical communication styles. His favorite style was Initiating style where he once reconnected a pair of friends after 25-30 years! He said that we cannot use the same communication style everywhere. He ended up saying that” Please use the supporting style to your wife, because if you don’t, that’s not my problem!” I loved the way he said it. Very innocent…
The next segment was the Table Topics segment by Table Topics Master (TTM), Flaming Chew. The segment started with Toastmaster Pratyush Gupta, and then moved on to SAA Audrey Lim. Then, I (Kavin) spoke, then Salma Begum shared about criticism. And after that, Toastmaster KS Rajan and TMD Zhou Siying spoke. We then proceeded to the delicious Evaluation segment, which was presented by four expert Evaluators, Tang Keen Yeen, Jenny Au, Annie Goh & Tay Yiang Ping. After this, we had a workshop on Difference in preparation for Humorous and International Speech Contests by wonderful speaker Salma Begum. She said that, “International speeches are mostly inspirational, and takeaways from inspirational platforms. Humorous speeches are funny but not a series of one-liners. You need to make the audience feel superior than you. You can talk about funny moments in your life.” She shared how she prepared for International and Humorous Speeches. She also mentioned that for the international speech, you need to convey exactly what the main message that you want to share with the audience. “For the Humorous speech, think of the funny stories in your life. Think on how to exaggerate it. Avoid repetition & reduce laughter impact. Test the jokes in your Humorous Speech with your family or your friends.” She openly shared the mistakes she made in her contests. She said that for the Humorous Speech, the audience should laugh naturally, you cannot force them to, if they do not. In the international Speech, she did not use relatable topics. The final takeaway is that ‘do not be distracted by the competition’. Enjoy the process of the delivery of the speech and do not focus on winning, the trophies would come or would not come, but that does not matter.
Next, we had the Ah Counter report presented by Helena Lim and the Language Evaluation presented by Thomas Chen who extraordinarily evaluated everyone’s grammatical and spelling or pronunciation mistakes and evaluated the use of the Word of the Day, ‘Elucidate’. Then we had General Evaluator Fan Li evaluate the whole meeting. Finally, to close the meeting, we had the awards presentation by Club President, Rusman Hadijanto. I congratulate all the winners:
Best Evaluator - Jenny Au
Best Table Topics - Salma Begum
Written by: Kavin, Guest of the Club
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